Fluorosis caused by drinking high-fluoride water is one of the endemic diseases spreading mostly all over the world. In China, except in Shanghai, fluorosis caused by drinking high-fluorine water has been found in the rest provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. Therefore, there is a strict standards for the fluoride content in drinking water internationally, and the World Health Organization has set a guideline limit of 0.6-1.5 mg/L for fluoride in drinking water. In China, the maximum contaminant level (MCL) of fluoride in drinking water is 1.0 mg/L, and the MCL of the inorganic fluorine compounds in industrial waste water is 10 mg/L.
Among various fluoride removal methods for drinking water, adsorption method has been regarded as one of the most promising methods. And the key of adsorption method is adsorbent. At present, active alumina as a fluoride adsorbent is most widely used in China and abroad, which has an optimal operation pH of 5 and the adsorption capacity thereof is relatively small because the saturation adsorption capacity thereof is generally 10-20 mg/g. Furthermore, the regeneration by aluminum sulfate will easily cause the leaching of aluminum, so this method has relatively more problems in actual application. Therefore, high attention has been paid to the research and development of a new adsorbent for substituting active alumina internationally. In addition to performing an improving research on the conventional materials of active alumina, bone charcoal and the like, the trend of fluoride removal research nowadays is that more attentions have been paid to the development and screening of a fluoride adsporption material with good fluoride removal effect, wide application range and stable performance.
In recent years, some research indicated that multivalent metal compounds of rare earths, iron, manganese and the like have a high ability of anions adsorption. In a paper entitled “Removal of Fluoride Using Rare Earth Based Inorganic Adsorbent” (Environmental Chemistry, V21, No. 4, July, 2002) by Zhongzhi JIAO, Yu ZHANG, Min YANG et. al., a Ce—Fe adsorbent was reported and the fluoride adsorption tests indicates that the Ce—Fe bimetal oxide shown a high fluoride adsorption capacity in pH range 3-5, when pH approaches neutrality (the normal pH range of drinking water is 6.5-8.5), the fluoride adsorption performance thereof is relatively poor.